Apart from hitting, shooting, and stabbing, you can also kill someone with a word. Even small things can be violent to someone. Why is that violence omnipresent in Korean society nowadays? Could we do something to reduce it and make our society a better place to live together? The Chonnam Tribune asked Noh An-young (Professor, Department of Psychology) about this. - Ed.
Whether it is big or small, if someone got hurt physically or mentally, we can call it violence. Verbal abuse, disregard, sexual harassment, and bullying outsiders are clearly violence, but we seem to be ignorant of small violence, or even take it for granted. The interesting thing is that bullies have experienced being dominated by their family or at school. Many people think that children who were brought up by a parent who uses physical power to control his or her family will not become violent toward others. However, it is not true. According to some study, the children have a high tendency to follow their parent’s misbehavior because that is what they have become accustomed to, and they retaliate to others who are relatively weaker than them. Therefore, offenders produce victims and the victims become offenders to someone else. It is the cycle of violence.
Therefore, education from home and school, a basic group unit of society, is significant. Unfortunately, the basic education does not seem to be working properly due to the systematic problem of our society. Korean society is too heavily focused on competing, beating, and surviving. Just like getting through auditions, there are so many competitions in every field, and only those who are on top are considered being ‘the best’, ‘the power’, ‘the superior’ and respected. This social atmosphere makes people want to be superior even by disregarding and bullying others. Most of them misunderstand that being respectful can be done by using power.
Rudolf Dreikurs, an American psychiatrist and educator, said that we need to have “the courage to be imperfect”. Our abilities or specialties cannot be the same because we were all born differently. We should be able to accept individual differences. Society should pursue social equality which means that people should be respected not by their achievement or power but as they are. It is high time that we pay attention to those who are not the best and encourage them to believe that they can do it. This encouragement and mutual respect can be the solution to reduce small but still harmful violence in our daily life. In order to change the society, the basic step should be taken in our home and school. If our parenting makes children think that they are being loved and respected just as a human being even if they are not a great performer, our society will be filled with mutual respect.
By Noh Yeon-jung, Guest Reporter
[Special Report]
노연정 객원기자
tribune@cnumedia.com